New fruitage – 2016

My fruitage this year seems consistent with your letter pointing out that “Christian Science was never about what a mortal human mind supposes it can think or comprehend.” It follows some insights I had about this a few years ago, which I’ll summarise first.

A close university colleague had been diagnosed with a bone marrow condition and was too ill for the recommended transplant operation. I knew him as a supportive colleague and good truth-seeker, but he was antagonistic to traditional Christianity and friends said his thinking was too negative for him to be healed. That really jarred on me because it was the view of psychology, not of Christian Science. With only one Mind, where could negative thinking come from? I knew that Mary Baker Eddy had healed an antagonistic journalist of throat cancer without any co-operation from him. Also Eutychus was not receptive to Paul’s preaching and fell asleep, yet was raised from the dead. I could not accept that my friend’s thinking debarred him from healing. But I still had a problem because my own thinking was nothing like that of Paul or Mary Baker Eddy! It was often quite confused. Then a Sentinel article about work with prisoners made the clear point that Truth is always effective, even when resisted: in fact particularly when resisted. In a Eureka moment I saw that it was not the thought of Paul or Mrs Eddy that had brought about these healings but Truth itself. So my friend’s healing didn’t depend on my limited thought because Truth would do it. I recognized that the human mind is never a factor in divine healing, not in the thought of the one who needs help, nor of the one who would provide it. As I was working out these ideas my friend came off oxygen and blood transfusions, exchanged his invalid scooter for a new car, and played one or two holes of golf.

I gained further insight three months ago when I had prolonged pain from a broken tooth. My jaw became painful, I couldn’t open my mouth, and my face was very swollen. For ten days, working with a practitioner there was no change, and relief from pain was very brief so I couldn’t sleep. Also at that time thinking was difficult for me. I could handle only one idea at a time and felt guilty if my thinking did not click with the practitioner’s. I stopped treatment to be alone with God at Christmas, then asked another practitioner as the first was not available. He referred me to the Bible promise that nothing could be added or taken from what God does. I felt that this was it and I didn’t want any other thought from him because the healing was nothing to do with his thought or mine. I didn’t have to think differently to make Truth true. The physical problem was unreal: God hadn’t made it and that was that. There was nothing wrong with my thought: God made that too. To accept that I must think differently to change something that God didn’t create in the first place would be to add a mental problem to a physical problem and give me two to handle. I wasn’t going to buy into that scenario. As I understood this, the swelling of my face began to go down. I was soon able to sleep and to take a firm stand that the deformity was a lie about God’s perfection, and that my thinking reflected only the divine Mind and had never been open to accept any false belief. Within a week, with continued help, the distortion and jaw pain had gone and I could open my mouth. Later a dentist rebuilt the broken tooth, said I must have remarkable pain tolerance, and asked about Christian Science.